MPAJ Seminar at Music Matters

The J-POP Phenomenon

Marty Friedman

May 24th 2012

The Ritz-Carlton

Singapore

Music Publishers Association of Japan

http://www.mpaj.or.jp

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The J-POP Phenomenon

<Interviewer>

Ken Ohtake, President, Sony Music Publishing (Japan) Inc.

and Executive Director, MPAJ

<Speaker>

Marty Friedman, Guitarist & Producer ______________________________________________________________________________

【Marty Friedman Profile】

7 time Grammy nominated Gold and Platinum recording artist

with sales of over 12 million during his 10 years as lead

guitarist of Megadeth. He left the band to pursue his solo

career in Japan where he has performed on over 400 television

shows, motion pictures and commercials and has also written

two books on J-pop. He is preparing a world concert tour this

year following his 11th solo album.

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Ken (K): Ladies and Gentleman, good afternoon and thank you for coming to our panel, ‘The J-

POP Phenomenon’ organized by MPA Japan. And first of all I would like to take this

opportunity to thank all of you and Jasper and Music Matters and especially the musicians and

producers who were involved in Fix You, you just heard, the covered project for Japan disaster

aid on Music Matters 2011. It really mattered a lot to us.

Despite all the problems we have on the growth of the digital businesses,

Japan is the second largest music market still in the world and 18% of

the music has been consumed in Japan in 2011. As a music publisher, I

strongly believe that there will be more chance for the music writers

around the world, especially from this territory to be successful in our

marketing writing for the Japanese like singers and artistes. We should

learn from our panel today not only the business aspect to be lucrative.

But some creative tips for you to be more accepted in our market. At the

same time I’m very happy to learn that increasing number of people in

Asia, Europe and Americans are paying strong attention to J-Pop. J-Pop

will be available in various occasions in your territory. Light performances, sounds for sync and

covers and many of J-Pop writers have a strong desire to write for the singers in your territory.

You get useful information through the

Website we support called Sync Music

Japan as you see there, and we’ll keep

you update, updated with the lots of

information’s including coming shows

and concerts, tours of the Japanese

artistes in Singapore and another

countries as well. Also through our panel

today, you will learn the uniqueness of

the J-Pop from the music creator’s point

of view.

So let me introduce this speaker of this

panel Mr. Marty Friedman you may also

know him as an ex-guitar player from

Megadeth. He is currently strong among

the most recognized artists in the

Japanese music scene, based in Tokyo

for 8 years now and speaking fluent

Japanese, he is a celebrity we see on TV

every day. He has published two books

about J-Pop. Last year he released a

second J-Pop hits cover album called

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Tokyo Juke Box 2. He continues to spread Japanese music to the listeners around the globe, as a

guitar player and also as a producer. Today Marty will talk to you about, what J-Pop is from the

view of successful non-Japanese music creator and how you can break into the Japanese music

market from his own experiences and also about possibility of placing Japanese music overseas.

We hope you get some tips on how you can explore opportunities for your business with Japan

from this panel. Everybody please welcome Mr. Marty Friedman.

Marty Friedman (M): Thank you very much. Today we are going to talk about J-Pop in so

much depth that by the time you finish with this, you will fall in love with it, or you won’t want

to hear about it again.[Public laughs]. And it’s the type of thing that if you are enthusiastic about

it, you are just going to really get hooked on it. Why am I the one telling you about this, I mean I

have to explain that to you as well? Why am I the one that is spreading this word about J-Pop,

we don’t have a whole lot of time but I`ll make it short for you. I was a guitar player in

Megadeth for ten years. It’s probably where a lot of people know me from. But during that time I

started listening almost exclusively to Japanese music and that made me think, this is the kind of

music that I want to play, this is the kind of musical atmosphere that I want to be in. Japanese

music was just so exciting and fresh to me whereas I thought that international heavy metal scene

was cool but was very stagnant to me as a musician. And as an artist I thought I really just have

to follow my whims as an artist to do what I really wanted to do. So I left Megadeth to

specifically go to Japan and kind of infiltrate my way to the Japanese music scene which I

eventually did and, don’t get me wrong, I loved all of my time playing in Megadeth, but when I

left and went to Japan and started working in this new musical world, it was the best thing that I

have ever done in my life as far as my step up as an artist so to speak.

I am going to talk to you from the angle of, first of all I being a great big fan of the genre of

music, but also as probably the only person that I can think of that has my unique angle of seeing

J-Pop from not only the inside view but an insider who came from the other world to see what

was really going on in there and actually work my way into that style of music. So it’s almost

like a spy`s eye view of the whole thing and for whatever reason I’m the only one who can see it

my way and hopefully by the end of today, you’ll see the attraction to it, what’s great about it,

why it’s going to be happening around the whole world it to some extent soon and anyway

hopefully my enthusiasm may rub off on you guys a little bit. So I’ll at least give you a little bit

of information.

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What is J-POP ?

So rather than talking about music let’s play a couple video clips, a few songs from Japan that

every single person in Japan knows and then I will speak a little bit about each song. Let’s take

the first song which is a group called AKB48.

[Music Clip: AKB48 ‘Heavy Rotation’]

K: This was the top best selling

Japanese song last year.

M: Yeah, best selling song of the year

2011 and it`s probably in the charts

still now. But this is the kind of thing,

if you can’t get excited about this, I

mean you must be deaf. [Public

laughs]. I mean I heard this song, and

first of all forget about how cute these

girls are. Let’s forget about that, let’s

forget about how sexy they are, let’s

forget how colorful and exciting the

video is. Just look at this song first of

all. That kind of song is exactly what I

was missing in western rock and pop music. I mean when you describe the popular songs of

western music, words like deep and moody and personal and powerful and things like those kind

of words come up a lot. But what about exciting, fun and happy? I mean, I never think about a

happy song coming from western pop music. I know I am generalizing in a big way but when I

think of it I get really kind of depressed because the biggest hugest artists are fantastic and I

really respect them and all that. But where is the fun? I mean there is nothing that is nearly as fun

as that one song (Heavy Rotation) coming out of western music. I can guarantee it. Of course

everybody has different definitions of fun and this is pretty much only my opinion. Everybody is

completely free to have their own opinions. But from my own personal taste, this is the fun in

music that I was missing from western music. So on top of that, then you have these 48 gorgeous

girls and not only being gorgeous they have been culled from lots of audition processes they

have sweet personalities and do fun stuff on TV and they’re really hardest working kind of artists

that are coming out of Japan right now. It’s an unbelievable work load that they have. They do

12 hour autograph sessions regularly. But my point is, even if they weren’t cute and even if the

video wasn’t the most colorful and fun thing you have ever seen, the song alone is enough to get

me into it. And oppositely even though the images are huge and striking, a big, big part of their

popularity, it`s their constant quality of songs that continues at this high level that keeps them on

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the top of the charts. It really doesn’t matter how much personality you have, if you don’t have

good songs and good song writing that can reach the people listening to it, it really doesn’t

matter how keen you are. But AKB48 has it all and have continued to have it all for a long time

and it’s just an extremely impressive thing, which leads me to the next song. The next song is

similar to AKB48 in the way that, it is a unit of very cute girls, but it also leads me to talk about

my position, or more specifically one of my many positions in the music scene in Japan. In J-Pop

it’s not like American music where genres are separated so much. In America, you got R&B and

Rap and Hip Hop and then you’ve got Rock and then Heavy Metal and they don’t really cross

that much. In Japan, the genre of J-Pop there are so many different sounds and different feelings

within this overall genre that it truly is like anything goes and to me as a musician I love that

kind of feeling. We can try anything. It can be really futuristic or it can be really old style or it

can be anything and you don’t have to worry about stepping outside any boundaries due to genre.

Momoiro Clover Z; ‘…my guitar can belong in there because there’s a whole lot of willingness to experiment in the Japanese music scene which makes really fresh for creative musicians...’

M: So that leads me to the next song which is from group called Momoiro Clover Z. I play the

guitars on this song and this is the type of guitar playing that you might hear me playing on one

of my solo records or even in a Megadeth song or a full on metal type of situation. But like when

you hear that previous song by AKB48 you wouldn’t immediately think that’s where Marty’s

guitar belongs. But no, my guitar can belong in there because there’s a whole lot of willingness

to experiment in the Japanese music scene which makes really fresh for creative musicians. So

I’ll play you a little clip from Momoiro Clover Z which is kind of like an option to AKB48 as far

as like huge arena dome class idol girl groups. So this is a song called, well it’s probably best

that I don’t say the names of the songs, you will forget that anyway. Anyway it’s Momoiro

Clover Z.

[Music Clip: Momoiro Clover Z ‘Mōretsu Uchū Kōkyōkyoku, Dai Nana Gakushō “Mugen no

Ai’ ]

M: Now to western ear that is the weirdest thing ever, isn’t it? [Laughs]. I just loved that. I love

the “holy crap, what is that?!” and that’s the kind of thing that gets my juices going as a musician,

as an artist, as a producer, as a player, as all those things. That type of thing is totally normal to

me in Japan but if I had been approached to do something like that back when I lived in America,

oh my, it would be too overwhelming to deal with but the world of J-Pop is really all about

finding new things that are delicious and in my opinion that’s just great because I love it. First of

all as a guitar player I love pop music that allows you to have, really rad guitar playing for lack

of better word. I mean, in American pop music, the guitar is almost not existent and if it is, it’s

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just very, “just kind of stick some guitars over there”. But for a long time in Japanese pop music

with a long explanation that I won’t go into, guitar is really kind of a “fits anywhere goes

anywhere” kind of instrument, kind of sound so it works in this kind of music and it’s just very

exciting to play in that type of thing.

Visual-kei

M: So we are not just going to just sit at here and talk about these girl pop things all the time.

We are going to talk about the wideness of J-Pop in Japanese music in general. The next thing I

want to talk to you about, is a whole different style of a music called Visual-kei and this is

probably a little bit easier to understand happening in other countries than Japan and being more

accepted in other countries little by little, it already is, some groups like Dir En Grey and X

Japan who are really big names in visual music are already doing excellent outside of Japan.

L'Arc-en-Ciel was here in Singapore so this is starting, this already been happening for a while

but I believe it’s happening more and more. Let me show you a video, one of the biggest Visual-

kei groups now in Japan and then let’s talk about that a little bit. This is the group called the

GazettE.

[Music Clip: the GazettE ‘HYENA’]

M: Now let me tell you what I think is super interesting about this. From hearing that sound you

would think that all of their fans are boys. Especially growing up in America if that band came to

America, there would be probably be maybe two girls in the audience. It would be a big bunch of

dudes the just rocking and head banging, it totally would be. But when I first came to Japan and I

went to see some of the bands like this, it was 100% girls, there were no guys in the audience.

100% girls and not only that but the girls knew the songs inside and out and they were head

banging to these odd time signatures and following all the riffs and singing all the songs and

these girls know their heavy songs better than the American guys who know their heavy metal

songs. These are cute little girls you know, it kinda blew me away. Then I joined a band like this

and I played a tour of Japan playing this kind of stuff and much to my surprise everybody in the

audience were girls. This is great as a player.[Laughs] This is why I started playing! Finally,

finally after all these years! I am still playing this heavy music that I love, and suddenly it’s all

girls! What happened?

K: That’s why you are in Japan for years!

M: That’s why I am in Japan, you got it! [Laughs and claps] And then, it was actually with the

singer named KIRITO who was in a very famous band called PIERROT and now is in a group

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called Angelo. Actually we toured all of Japan and I was talking to him about it. He is really kind

of a legend in this visual world and I am like, “dude this is great, it’s all girls every night”. Then

he said, “No, I wish there are more guys who came to show tonight. [Laughs] They are the ones

who really pay attention to the music and the girls are just there just for the image”. [Laughs]

And I could sort of kind of sympathize with them, but I was really like “big problem, man…”.

[Laughs] I just thought that was a very interesting concept. But when Visual-kei music breaks

out of Japan and goes to other countries. I think it’s going to be a little bit more balanced and

guys will come out and really dig that. I think even now there is a lot of American stuff that is

kind of similar to Visual-kei and if you look it, like My Chemical Romance and Black Veil

Brides stuff like that, it’s like kind of similar. You know, I think a lot of the influences are

similar. But it’s a genre of music that is a very cool part of Japanese culture and it’s something

that I think has got a lot of potential outside of Japan.

Kana Nishino; ‘…this type of singing would never make past the audition of American Idol. and that’s what good about it….’

M: Ok, the next song is a whole different

360 now. Yeah this is like, might be a

typical kind of, what you will call an idol

pop princess. Maybe not an idol, would you

say idol?

K: Cell phone idol.

M: Cell phone idol. Cell phone. Well that

sort of, that’s a point that he should explain

much better than I could. [Laughs]. But this

is, when I see this is, I think this is the type

of female singer that most girls in Japan can

relate to. Typically, young girls who buy albums actually buy the music on their cell phones.

This is a singer named Nishino Kana and the thing about her that typifies her Japanese style is

the fact that she just sticks to the melody. There is not a whole lot of adlibbing, actually there is

no adlibbing at all. She just sticks to the melody. There’s no vocal gymnastics. I mean this type

of singing would never make past the audition of American Idol. [Laughs] and that’s what good

about it. I mean, I don’t get it. Can somebody explain me, why do people have to scream at their

top of their lungs? Why do you need this five octave range just to sing a simple love song. I

mean it’s just not my taste. But apparently it’s in the taste of lot of people so it’s equally as valid.

But the reason why I am so attracted to Japanese music is because if you are singing a delicate

pop song or a delicate love song, you don’t have to scream like Aretha Franklin. I get the point.

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[Laughs]. And it is very, very uncommon in Japan to sing any more adventurous or any more

virtuosic -if that’s a word- than what you are going to hear in this song from Nishino Kana. This

is a huge hit song in Japan so check it out.

[Music Clip: Nishino Kana ‘Tatoe Donnani’]

M: So why is this kind of thing like super popular in Japan? From my many years in Japan I

think the best explanation is that Karaoke is a big thing in Japan and people want something that

can make them say, “I can almost sing as good as she can, I think I can sing that song.” If you

have some super impossible song with amazing vocal skills and stuff like that, nobody is going

to want to even try it and embarrass themselves at Karaoke. But when you have a good song with

a melody that’s really easy to understand and a voice that’s cute, and has its own style to it, the

second you hear it, you know that it’s her, and you don’t have to be a great singer to try to at

least have fun with it - that is a very big reason why this style of kind of “just sing the melody”

style is so big in Japan and it also frees up song writers to write melodies that are gorgeous. It`s

also personal taste in my case because I noticed about the great singers of American pop music,

they might sing a first verse and bridge and maybe the first chorus of the song sort of normal and

then they just take of and start adlibbing until its nowhere near the melody anymore and that’s

called melisma I think it’s the term for it and its just adlibbing, especially in the world of R&B.

It’s like you have to show how strong of a singer you are at all times and I just don’t get it.

Somebody could explain what is good about it to me and I will understand it, but for my taste I

don’t just necessarily need to be screamed at.

In these types of Japanese pop songs, the lyrics are not always very deep. You know, they are

about very normal things that any girl of any age can relate to about relationships etc. It’s not

like about going to the clubs and partying down all the time. It’s just about normal relationships

with maybe your friend or your boyfriend or something like that. It’s not too deep and the

melodies are not very hard to understand. So, this simplicity coupled with the production and the

magic of that person’s voice with the person’s song choice is what makes the stuff so incredibly

good.

Mr. Children

M: Okay. Now the next song I am going to play for you is a song by group called Mr. Children

and this is a good representation of the grand scale of what a huge band and a huge superstar

kind of project sounds like in Japan. First all of all listen to the song by Mr. Children.

[Music Clip: Mr. Children ‘Shirushi’]

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M: I love this kind of band and I think maybe it’s because for my melodic taste in music, I like

stuff that’s really grand and exaggerating, romantic melodies. When I hear this type of thing it`s

a very traditional ballad but it’s really done on a large scale. I mean you can hear this at a huge

venue like the Tokyo Dome or something like that and that’s the type of place Mr. Children

would play. Structurally if you look at the song, it takes you from A to Z on a musical journey

and I will explain this more later, how the chord changes lead to each other in a certain way that

is very typical to Japanese music. I am going to get it to that in more technical detail later for

you songwriters out there.

Japanese R&B, Hip Hop; ‘…what I realized about Rap music in Japan is that the lyrics are not gangster at all, not in the slightest, actually they are quite the opposite…’

M: Let’s just go to another song, and this is kind of like the genre of music that I’m probably

least qualified to talk about. But I can totally give you my perception of this genre of music. This

is the Japanese R&B and Rap Hip Hop type of scene, which every country has their own kind of

Hip Hop /rap scene. As an American when I go to France and I see people rapping in French, I

just have to start laughing. It just sounds weird to me but of course to them it means something

and so the same thing happens when I came to Japan. The difference is that I speak Japanese so

I know what they are talking about and what I realized about Rap music in Japan is that the lyrics

are not gangster at all, not in the slightest, actually they are quite the opposite. For the most part

they are very positive and they are like the song I am going to play for you right now. The basic

theme of the song is to never give up, keep trying and do your best in whatever it is. Whether it’s

graduating school or trying to be a grown up or whatever, and that’s very common. Be thankful

for the things you have, thankful for the people you have in your life and stuff like that. The

people around you and positive images are very common in the rap music in Japan. So I thought

that was very interesting first of all as being an American I’m used to hearing things that are

really quite freighting in rap music, so coming to Japan and hearing really quite positive

messages is very nice for me. This song that I am going to play for you now is from the great

artist SEAMO. So check this out.

[Music Clip: SEAMO ‘Continue’]

M: Yeah, that’s a really beautiful song, I wish I could play you the rest. They used that

graduation theme and kind of use a sample of Pomp and Circumstance. It’s really nice lyrics

had a big effect on me. But another thing about R&B flavored music in Japan-it’s got its own

taste. I think one of the originators or one of the most well known names in R&B music in Japan

is the singer, Kubota Toshinobu. His style if you hear it, in Japan you might think it`s R&B but if

you hear it in America it just sounds like someone singing with a slightly R&B flavor, nice

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ballads and nice lively R&B flavored dance type of songs. The biggest difference for me in

Japanese R&B is the fact that melody is still the main thing just like in any other sub –genre of J-

Pop, the melody has really got to be solid and something that people can make out easily. So in

his R&B songs the melody is always been something super catchy and maybe the phrasing is

little bit R&B and maybe there is some kind of hip hop type beats in the background, but

basically it’s just kind of your basic melodic ballad type of feeling and that’s what fits in to my

personal taste. I am not the biggest R&B or soul fan of all the time although I definitely respect

the genre. There are some great producers like Jeff Miyahara who spoke at this event last year

who is extremely knowledgeable in the issue and the things that he produced are considered

R&B and hip hop in the Japanese music scene. When I hear his work, I just hear really a nice

melody with the slight taste of R&B and that taste mixed with the cutest Japanese singing and

the lack of the screaming and adlib is just the perfect amount of R&B for the type of sound that I

like. So it might totally turn off someone who loves real hardcore deep R&B stuff. But I think in

Japanese music it is much more towards the pop side of music. So it fits in with my taste.

Perfume; ‘…one of most exciting odd time signatures that I never heard in dance music…’

The next song is, I guess you can fit it into the dance music category or the club music category,

but when I heard this group Perfume, I thought was the most futuristic coolest thing I ever heard

and I thought, “this is the new rock”. I saw them at Budokan and people were jamming to this

group. Regular people in the audience, it sounded like club music, but people were not hip club

people or anything like that. It was all regular people. Couples, older people, younger people and

they were rocking out to it like it was an AC/DC concert. I am telling you. Rock is officially

dead because this is it. But at the same time it is everything that rock is against. All the vocals are

pre-recorded and auto-tuned. There are no guitars but it is so freaking cool and powerful and the

song I am about to play you has one of most exciting odd time signatures that I never heard in

dance music. You never really hear odd times signatures in dance music anyway right? This is

like against the law or something. But as a musician I heard this kind of a dance song with the

odd time signature and extremely climactic odd time section and I am like, “Holy crap, this the

greatest thing I’ve ever heard”. So listen to the song, on my album, “Tokyo Jukebox”, I actually

covered this song. Polyrhythm by Perfume, check it out.

[Music Clip: Perfume ‘Polyrhythm’]

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M: I mean, man, if that’s not exciting! I

strongly suggest listening to anything by

Perfume, their producer Mr. Nakata is a

genius and pretty much revolutionized the

sound of Japanese pop music and what’s

happened in the last four or five years at

least so sonically and technically he’s

really got lot of great things on the ball. I

covered that particular song because I just

loved that odd time section, I just had to

do it on guitar. I mean was just screaming

for guitar so I just had to do it.

Ikimono-gakari; ‘….the purest form of J-Pop…’

And the last clip I am going to show you is by a group called Ikimono-gakari which is a

wonderful representation of, “what’s J-Pop? “This song is the purest form of J-Pop. So check it

out.

[Music Clip: Ikimono-gakari ‘Arigatou’]

M: If you have to pick one melodic representation of J-Pop it would be this group and possibly

this song and one thing to note about these guys is, they are the kind of act who`s fans and the

parents of the fans are in agreement on. This is strange in rock and even pop music because you

are not supposed to like the same music as your parents. [Laughs] I mean this is just not right!

But this group is right on the line where parents are happy with their kids listening to it. The kids

are happy to share their musical taste with their parents. I just think that’s the weirdest

phenomena but it works with this band because it’s kind of an ageless song. Melodically it’s very

easy to accept and the lyrics are about stuff that young kids can relate to as well as their parents.

So what’s wrong with that? But I think the arrangements in the song writing and performances

are just so right on, so good in fact that I wanted to share that song with all of you people. So

hopefully all of these 8 songs will give you a little idea of the wideness of Japanese pop music.

K: Great. Thanks for introducing Japanese music. So we will spend our remaining time giving

musicians some tips about how you can create this music from your point of view, can you pick

up your guitar?

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Songwriting in Japanese Music Market

M: Yeah. I think rather than talking about a musical concept I think it is easier to play guitar and

explain so you can hear I am talking about. A lot of people think that if you write a song it can be

used anywhere in the world but the one thing that you all need to know, especially song writers

interested in this whole thing, about music in the Japanese world of music, is that there is a kind

of standard melodic chord progression type of sense. In Japanese music it’s all common sense

type of things, but in western music its things that we didn’t grow up with, so what is normal to

them is not normal to everybody else. So I wanted to just rewind that for you and show exactly

what that is.

This song that I just played for you, is called Arigatou which means thank you. It’s a very typical

chord progression, a very typical Japanese melody. So this type of thing you have to understand

inside and out, if you want to write songs for Japanese artists. Especially if you are a new song

writer, you going to want to keep it sort of traditional, something that a Japanese ear can pick up

on and understand right away. I can’t stress hard

enough that these types of chord progressions

and these types of melodies find their way into

most every style of Japanese music whether

they be really heavy, heavy interpretations of

Visual-kei music or Japanese heavy metal or

pop or dance music. These chord progressions

and these melodies are pretty much the

foundation for all of that type of stuff. So

anyway I will outline the chords of that last

song and just see you can understand the very

typical Japanese chord progression. I want you

to know beforehand is a lot of western songs

they base themselves on four chords or so.

Usually these types of chords...

[Guitar Playing]

You all heard that chord progression a billion times and they still continue to go on. It’s a short

cycle of four chords. But in Japanese pop music and rock and like everything else I said before,

Photo by crowdedstudios.com

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often times it’s a very long journey from the beginning to the end. So this is a very typical chord

progression to a Japanese song. This is the progression from the last song Arigatou,

[Guitar Playing]

K: That sounds very Japanese.

M: So I don’t know what the musical differences in the cultures are but maybe the Japanese need

more chords and longer melodies to be satisfied. Also when you have a long chord progression

like that, there is a whole of less room to ad lib in and show of your vocal stuff because if you

don’t stick to that melody, you are going to run into some traffic accidents falling on those tricky

chords. Actually there were a lot of songs in American pop music in the 70’s that followed

progressions like this. I would suggest finding the correlations between those two styles of music.

KOTOKO; ‘…one of the first songs that I wrote that actually had some chart activity in Japanese pop music…’

Now I will play you one of my songs that was one of the first songs that I wrote that actually had

some chart activity in Japanese pop music. This is for a singer called KOTOKO and when a lot

of my previous fans heard this they actually could not believe that it was me who wrote this and

when I heard it finally done when I worked on the song with the singer we finished the record, I

couldn`t believe that as American person I had actually written this song. But after doing this for

a long time and being in Japan it is completely second nature to understand this. So this is a very

Japanese sounding song that I wrote called the Kireina-senritsu.

[Music Clip: KOTOKO ‘Kireina-senritsu’]

You`d never think that I wrote that particular song. You would never think that. But it’s

important to know that this was the chorus of the song, it’s a long chorus with a lot of ups and

downs, waves and valleys and mountains and goes up and down through lot of different

emotions. When it hits some of those minor chords, those minor six chords, it’s basically a major

progression but when you throw that minor six chord in the right place and you have a really nice

vocal harmony over it, it just kind of gives you a nostalgic kind of sad feeling that comes out

very often in Japanese music and when used properly it can really give you goose bumps, and

that’s a feeling that I love when I am listening to pop music. So that is something I went for

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when I wrote pop songs. So that’s an example of what you really have to understand as a

foundation to song writing if you want to start to approach that music market.

K: Also does the chorus,

also have to fit in either

15 seconds or 30

seconds?

M: This is a very good

point. In Japan, like

everywhere else in the

world but probably

more so in Japan,

people will take the

chorus of the song and

buy it for their phones

as their ring tones and

that’s a very huge

market and a very huge

avenue for artists.

So it’s so important to have that chorus be the type of melody that you want to have on your

phone in the first place and especially the beginning of the chorus has to be something like,

oh ”that” song. You know, so, you really have to be able to fit it into 15 seconds or 30 seconds.

Songs for Television Commercials

M: Not only for that but also more importantly than in other countries, Japan has television

commercials that feature pop songs whereas most of the commercials released in America rarely

have current hit songs. They might have like an old classic rock song or something, “Born to be

Wild” for a beer commercial or something like that. But in Japan its the complete opposite. Often

songs are becoming hits because of their TV commercial exposure. So you got to have a chorus

of the song that hits you in the first 10 seconds, 15 seconds, “oh that song from the ice cream

commercial “ or something like that. I can’t tell you enough of how important that chorus, the

grandness of the chorus has to be. And if you notice, it is not the grandness of the vocal

technique, it is not the superstar singer, it’s the song itself. It doesn’t really matter as much about

the person who is singing it or what they are singing about, rather it is in the magic between that

singer and that song and for my taste that’s really, really good. So an important thing to know is

that inside the chorus you`ve got to have like some kind of emotional ups and downs in there. Of

Photo by crowdedstudios.com

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course in western music there are a lot of great emotions as well. But a lot of that has to do with

the singer’s technique and the singer’s interpretation. For example in the case of Adele, I mean

it’s a wonderful song, but there are only four chords in it. What gives it the value is her great

vocal interpretation and the matching between her vocals and those personal lyrics. In Japan that

doesn’t happen nearly as much as the magic between the vocalist`s personality and the song and

the memorableness of the chorus which usually happens at the beginning of the song. So

hopefully that can explain a little bit about the foundation of song writing in Japan from my

perspective, anyway.

K: Great. I think now we will have a question round now. Q & A. Any questions?

Q&A

Question1: Hi Marty, Steve McClure here. Those are really, really interesting presentations, I

have learned a lot. I continue to learn a lot about Japanese pop music and I respect you for

having studied it as you obviously have. One question I want to ask you though is you really

emphasized the complexity of the J-Pop in terms of the chords structure, the melody and I mean,

do you think that one reason why Japanese music hasn’t succeeded in selling overseas as much

as you might think music from the world second biggest music market should?

M: Very good question and I don’t

think that’s the reason nearly as much

as the language barrier. Especially, in

the case of the America whereas I

remember not even listening to

something because the singer had an

English accent speaking English and

sadly America really has to

understand every word and they

really take those lyrics as the gospel

for whatever reason. One thing I love

about Japan is they will listen to

music of other countries and not

understand a word but they just love

it, the way they feel when they hear

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the music. It’s probably similar in Singapore and all over Asia because there are so many

different cultures co-existing. But I just remember in America when Scorpions came out.

Scorpions are guys that sing with a German accent, and it took them forever to get popular. I

think that an accent is cool in a song. But America is a big country and I think rather than the

difficulty of the music, I think it’s the language, but the “exception” is something is going to do

like the Scorpions did. Fans are going to embrace that difference and this big, “that voice is so

cute”, “that is so interesting” will be the selling point. It’s a new world now since when the

Scorpions came out. I think it’s a globalized world. People are going to eventually fall in love

with song of a different language. It’s not going to be like 20 big acts from Japan will suddenly

invade America. But something- we are not sure what it’s going to be- is going to be that

Japanese symbol and that’s going to be the first step or one of many steps to get over that

language barrier.

K: Maybe Perfume?

M: Maybe, Perfume. I’ll be happy to see it.

Qestion2: Well, PUFFY did it. When I was working in New York, PUFFY Ami Yumi made a

big buzz for the youth market and they made a cartoon. But they definitely use their Japanese

culture with toys and cartoons and manga. At a Thanksgiving parade on New York`s Fifth

Avenue, they were able to perform. I believe they starred at a Baltimore, Otaku convention

center. I don’t want even to say, because Otaku sounds like very making fun of the culture, but

American culture which Singapore has too, a big influence from Japan Anime and anything

Kawaii. I think Puffy AmiYumi represent a feeling towards Kawaii culture. But at the time there

was no doubt, there was bunch of girls’ bands was going out happening in United States. So they

couldn’t compete with what they have gone for. Sony Music Japan at a time was focusing a little

bit on the young market. The safe music that their parents take those you know, their kids go see

Puffy AmiYumi because it is such a Kawaii band, it’s positive. You don’t see any drunk people.

It was an underage concert. So I think there is a potential for J-Pop, if they made it to United

States market. But R&B and black and hip hop music was really hard. It’s outside of Sony music

but Hikaru Utada from Universal tried to break into the R&B market. But I think Universal did a

wrong marketing move because you can’t compete with Mariah Carey, you can’t compete with

Mary J Blige. And they made a music video to try to compete with that with sex appeal. That’s

not what Japanese R&B music is about. It's more about a girl in Shibuya riding a bicycle with a

headphone. That’s Japan you know. Completely different cultures, I think it’s so important to be

who you are, you can’t fake it, don’t try to fit in somebody you are not. You just have to be kind

of who you are to be confident. Even though you don’t speak English but there is way to break

the market I think.

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M: I completely agree and I think a lot of Japanese artists try to break into the American music

scene and maybe that’s the goal, I don’t know, but every person has different goals. I mean, I am

an American who loves being in the Japanese music scene so I am sure there are Japanese who

want to be in the American scene and I think exactly like you say; it’s going to be someone

who’s going to be just themselves. There is no predicting what it’s going to be. I think it’s going

to be someone who is ultra Japanese like Nakagawa Shoko or Kyary Pamyu Pamyu or it’s

something like Perfume. You just never know.

K: Well thank you. I think the Japanese market was enough lucrative in a way. The Japanese

artist with record company could be happy making money only in Japan. But I think Korean

success encourages us to move a little forward and opens the door so please support our music

and it`s pretty much open to do anything here in this market.

Question3: I just have a question.

The 8 songs that you actually played

out to us, honestly I could only see

two differences, actually only one

which was the language. In terms of

the arrangements, in terms of the

field, it seemed much influenced by

the western. The question here was,

does Japanese have anything, any

genre which is actually specific to,

like in India for example what we

call Folk music? The question was

that all the examples of the J-Pop

you gave, are actually only, you

know, the Japanese language in a more westernized style. Do we have something like Folk in

Japanese?

M: Folk music?

Q3: Yeah, which actually can fall under the J-Pop category?

M: Oh of course. Folk music I didn’t even put it in this but there are artists like Kobukuro and

Yuzu and stuff like that. Huge. And Enka traditional Japanese music, it’s a completely different

world that we can spend hours on that. And one thing I forgot to mention, that in Japan, 80% of

the music that is listened to is domestic Japanese music. Only 20% of music that is bought in

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Japan, is from the whole rest of world and I am talking about Cold Play, U2 and Celine Dion,

Lady Gaga and all that stuff, that only makes up 20%.

Q3: Do you have a market for it? I don’t want them to think that the only music in Japan sounds

like western music.

K: We have both markets. 20% as international music, maybe 70% of music is kind of what you

may feel is the western influenced music, and maybe 10% are local folk songs.

Question4: Hi, Let’s say thanks for the presentation you gave today. It’s so difficult to get

insight like that. I really appreciate it. I write for Chinese singers and I quite enjoyed it but I also

really love to write for Japanese artists as I grew up loving Japanese music. What would you

suggest for any song writers if they want to enter the Japanese market as song writers? Where do

we start?

M: As a Chinese song writer?

Q4: Yeah.

M: He wants to approach the Japanese songwriting market and maybe this is a good one for Ken

to answer.

K: I think have a lot of opportunities because one of the reasons is that CD prices are pretty high

still, so you can earn more money from writing for Japanese music. Anyway, there is a rule,

there is little unique rule that we have in writing Japanese music commercially. So you should

approach the publishers who are here. I see a lot of Japanese publishers here. So please reach out

to them. Then I think they can answer you personally rather than me speaking up on behalf of

Music Publishers Association. Okay?

Q4: Thank you.

K: Thank you and I have to wrap this panel. Thank you very much for listening and please a big

round of applause to Mr. Marty Friedman.

[Applause]

END.

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Music Publishers Association of Japan

www.mpaj.or.jp